The present invention relates to data networking, and more specifically, to virtual switching based flow control.
Packet loss in data networks is a well known cause of poor performance in networking systems. Typically, physical switches are incorporated with measures to minimize packet loss. Ideally, a physical network seeks to operate in a lossless environment.
However, lossless environments in virtual switch networks may be a more difficult task. Typically, virtual components may operate entirely within a single switch or server and or in some cases may span over multiple physical machines. In some cases, where the physical network machine has incorporated measures to provide a lossless environment, the virtual machine(s) communicating with the physical machine may not understand the controlling software. Accordingly, the physical machine may reject interfacing with a virtual machine that is attempting to transfer data packets through the physical machine.
Thus it may be seen that a virtual networking environment may benefit from the implementation of data flow control that may be compatible with a physical networking environment.